Talk:Executable file

removal of disambig category
It appears we don't actually use this as a disambig. Inbound links always refer to general characteristics of an .exe, or a group of related .exes with a paragraph here, e.g. applications reading from data files, compiling an object file from source. If each individual tech article became so comprehensive that a certain link could reference, say, memory allocation in Hellmaker, then we could start re-targeting those, but we have hardly reached that level of detail currently.

A bit of restraint is needed with MediaWiki's disambiguation feature because each page requires manual maintenance. Not every taxonomy is a disambiguation; the prose must also largely fail in explaining its title to the lay reader, because the specific cases are too different, e.g. Eternity, Khorus, Saturn. Ryan W (living fossil) 23:18, 25 January 2018 (CST)


 * The idea was that, this being the Doom Wiki, most people searching for "executable" or "executable file" would probably be thinking of DOOM.EXE, but the fact is that we have many EXE file articles, many of which may be relevant to the person who initiated the search with only a specific one immediately in mind. Before I created this article, there was in fact nothing tying together the EXE articles, and several of them were orphaned articles as a result with no incoming links to them. --Quasar (talk) 23:27, 25 January 2018 (CST)


 * All of which is laudable (and the content certainly looks correct to me), but orthogonal to disambig. Redlinks, failed searches, and inbound 404s are all addressed with or without disambig, which solely affects bluelinks.  Only after a decent stub exists need one judge the bluelinks (current or prognosticated) for possible reader confusion to be addressed by disambiguation.    Ryan W (living fossil) 01:22, 26 January 2018 (CST)


 * My logic for a quite long time now has been "if I would normally make this a redirect but there are multiple valid targets, it's a disambig instead." Oh well. *shrug* --Quasar (talk) 12:08, 26 January 2018 (CST)